Wednesday, January 29, 2014

THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL - "Gorilla Suit Blues" (1941)

If you have one nostalgic bone in your body, you've got to miss the good olde 'Gorilla Suit' days of yesteryear! I know I do! I waited a long time to see tonight's feature film, because "The Monster And The Girl" is a hard little movie to hunt down, but it's worth the effort!

"The Monster And The Girl" is not as lively as "The Monster And The Stripper," but then how could it be, but it's a good little film. This is almost the most basic story line you could ever imagine, but just like three chord rock songs, simplicity can be perfection if properly applied!

The 'Girl' in the title is the enchanting Ellen Drew as Susan the bad penny Webster! Ellen bantered around Hollywood for a couple of years in the 30's doing uncredited or bit parts sometimes using the name Terry Ray in roles such as secretaries, switchboard operators, and party guests, but in 1941 she was in "The Mad Doctor" with Basil Rathbone and then in 1945 she co-starred with Boris Karloff in "Isle Of The Dead!"

This is the story of a small town brother and a sister who really have a close relationship, maybe too close! Scott Webster is the post office working, organ playing in the church brother as played by Phillip Terry of "The Leech Woman" fame!

But Susan is tired of small town life, and leaves her brother behind to move to the big city, where she almost immediately falls in love with a scumbag con man!

Said scumbag con man is Robert Paige as the charming Larry Reed! Robert's 87 credits include "Hellzapoppin,'" "Abbott And Costello Go To Mars," and "Son Of Dracula!"

Susan marries Larry, and wakes up the next morning and this guy is in her room! So, just what the Hell is going on here? Her husband has disappeared and Susan needs to pay for the wedding party and the room, and the only way she can do that is to work for these mobsters entertaining men! This guy is Giuseppe Maria Spurrin-Calleja, ask consummate bad guy, Joseph (Johnny Cool) Calleia!

Susan breathes the words, "WTF?" I think most men would agree, women always look beautiful when their hair is not perfectly coiffed!

Cut! Back to the first picture! Where'd the story go? Scott Webster is in court for a murder he was framed for, when he was trying to find Larry Reed! His sister Susan is in court testifying, and telling the whole back story, but the court doesn't believe it, and Scott is sentenced to death..........

.........But he is given one last option! He can give his brain to science!! Enter the always great George Zucco as the mad scientist with a plan to transplant a man's brain into a gorilla for the good of mankind!

If this gorilla looks like he has a little more character than your run of the mill simian, it's because it's makeup artiste Charles Gemora inside that skin! Besides his many appearances inside a gorilla suit, Charles was also the Martian in "The War Of The Worlds," AND the alien in "I Married A Monster From Outer Space!"

I'm thinking that the headline "Mangle Murderer Strikes Again" to this day has never been used again! The monster is on the loose, and George Zucco doesn't seem to notice or care at all!

The last movie we tried to make was titled "Voodoo Club!" We only got about 25% done when the whole thing imploded, but we were planning on using a gorilla in some of the final scenes, so I started looking into costs of gorilla suits, and this is what I found out!

On the left is a gorilla suit you can buy for about $100.00, and the gorilla suit like the one on your right is what you can rent for a week for about a thousand bucks!

The gorilla busts out seeking revenge, and reeking havoc on the mobsters that besmirched his sister, and got his human brain put inside a gorilla's skull! In this scene, this one hoodlum is feeling a little paranoid after a couple of his buddies have been knocked off, and he turns the radio on and up loud, and the swinging music by the prolific Gerard (Dr. Cyclops) Carbonara kicks in. This guy was so far down that after the gorilla crushes him, one of his mobster buddies comes in an shoots him too!

Hard to believe by today's standards, but at one time not that long ago, gorillas were just as popular as vampires and werewolves!

Here are some classic comic covers to illustrate how popular gorillas were in the 40's, 50's, and 60's

Well, just like the rest of the Bozos in the gang, Larry Reed gets what's coming to him too!

Susan's a little slow, but by the time it's over, she figures out that it's her brother inside that great big ape's head! To put an exclamation point on the whole subject, here's a catchy little ditty from a musical pal of ours!

7 comments:

I didn't completely understand the description of the one scene where the character gets shot by one of his own people after the gorilla's attack. Is it actually some kind of euthanasia?Either way, I don't blame the character for playing swing music as a way of dealing with his paranoia. All joking aside, that's one of my ways of dealing with such things.

Hey Grant, glad you liked "Gorilla Suit Blues," Glen is a pretty funny guy! The mobster guys didn't trust that guy any more, so they sent another guy to kill him, but the gorilla beat him to it, so when the guy comes in to shoot him, he fires a couple of shells into his already slumped over body! BUT....Now, since that great link from MDG14450, you can go see for yourself! Lucky people, I had to pay for my copy!

Usually it's spelled "wreaking" havoc, but considering this film maybe "reeking" havoc is more appropriate! It will be broadcast on MeTV on September 27 by Svengoolie; see his blogs on Svengoolie (dot) com for a sense of how he does his shows. A chance to see a rare monster movie for free! Plus Sven's comments on the actors and maybe some funny shtick in a gorilla suit.

DWRAYGER DUNGEON PRESENTS: The Monster Movie Music Manifesto

Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Spy, Super-Hero, JD, Thriller and Noir films, that's what we like, and a recurring theme in a lot of those kinds of movies has always been music! There were rockin' clubs and cafes with cool jukeboxes, teen poolside parties with local bands, sometimes it was a seedy bar with a sleazy torch singer, a beatnik coffeehouse, maybe dancing somewhere in outer space, or some weird tribal ceremony on a cool secluded island with giant monsters running around, and you could count on it that a lot of the time there was smoking and drinking going on. It was a fun time!! A lot of movies also had quirky, swingin', jazzy or rockin' themes or credits, or maybe just some wild Psychotronic elements! We started with the music from 50's & 60's Monster Movies, but we later morphed into the new, bigger and better, Rock and Soul, 70's brevity, 80's maybes, 1940's Gorilla and Bela site from Hell! So, sit down, and take a load off, pour yourself a cool one, and order up something hot and greasy, because we have a lot of tasty tidbits on the menu, way outside the realm of good taste! If any of the postings just happen to step on anybody's toes, let us know & we will remove them immediately, if not sooner!! We recognize all formal copyrights, and do this solely to support and promote the films featured! This forum is only being presented in a critical and scholarly critique, and should not be construed as anything else. It's just all for Fun & Historical Education in an effort to keep bad taste alive forever!!! If the words and pictures pique your interest, then please go out & buy, or rent the movies, wherever you can find them! All soundclips are approximately two minutes long, just enough to give you a feel for the movie! When we post a sound clip, it will only stay up 30 days or less!

Here are some good places to start your search for hard to find cult films on the internet: